Author: editor

From Marginalisation to Stereotypes — ‘North East India’ in Indian Media: Evidences from Focus Group Discussions in Manipur

Article

By Shipra Raj

Previous media studies have noted that India’s North East often remains absent from the mainstream media. As news media plays a formidable role in minorities recognition and representation and it is important to ask how media represents the North East.1 Building from the role of media in democracy this paper analyses how media reports the North East. The traditional journalistic ethics of fair, balanced and truthful does not mean that everybody gets equal representation. Three Focus Group Discussions were held in Manipur which involved 30 participants through purposive and snowball sampling technique. This paper analyses how and when the North East gets space in mainstream media. Participants noted that the coverage of Manipur in the mainstream media has widely been negative and their issues and interests are underrepresented. Majority of the participants noted that the coverage of mainstream media has often been incorrect and subject to stereotypes and has largely been focused on insurgency and conflict.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12781535

Status of Development in Meghalaya: An Inter-District Analysis

Article

By Sangeeta Dasgupta

Poor development status of Meghalaya and the North Eastern region as a whole has been a significant concern to policy makers. The centralised system of planning followed in Meghalaya so far could not bring about the desired level of development in the state. Although the condition of the people of the state has improved over the years, their situation remains backward as compared to the rest of the country’s population. Further, the state has already gone through seven five-year plan periods with various sectoral strategies adopted in each plan, but inequality in sectoral development in the different regions and districts of the state have been observed. A number of areas in Meghalaya are still lacking in many respects and there exists intra regional variations in terms of the level of development. Thus, micro-level studies for better understanding of the various factors affecting the development of the state are crucial. The present paper made an attempt to determine the comparative state of development and the magnitude of inter-district disparities of the then seven districts of Meghalaya. In order to address the existing socio-economic differential and related behavior in a development perspective, it is essential to determine the comparative state of development of the districts of Meghalaya.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12781423

Autonomy Demands in the Hill Areas of Manipur: Issues and Challenges

Article

By Seikhogin Haokip

In contemporary multi-ethnic nation-states of the world, autonomy has been often seen as a panacea for solving ethnic conflicts. However, when ethnic groups do not settle compactly in a particular geographical area, granting of autonomy to minority ethnic groups becomes problematic. It is often faced with overlapping land and territorial claims between groups and the tensions and conflicts thereafter. In India’s Northeast, ethnic groups are seldom found settled compactly in defined geographical areas. As such, autonomy demands in the region often involve contesting identity, land and territorial claims between groups, thereby, becoming the source of ethnic tensions and conflicts in the region. This paper examines the various issues and challenges in ethnic-based autonomy demands in the hill areas of Manipur.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12780865

Lacking Legitimacy? State, Civil Societies and
Trust Crisis in Manipur

Article

By L. Letkhomang Haokip

This paper examines the movement against three bills passed in Manipur Legislative Assembly on 31 August 2015. The agitation against the bills is seen to be a much deeper one. It represents a strong sense of insecurity among the subaltern class in Northeast region over their land and natural resources. It questions on the integrity of existing laws on landholding and resource management in the region which would be helpless in the face of a larger economic force such as India’s Act East Policy. People wanted a stringent law to protect and galvanise them from an intrusive capitalism. It is also about questioning the legitimacy of the government whose intention is going against people’s interest. Tension such as one saw in the case of anti-bills agitation in Manipur looms substantially from the moral trust deficit and the trust crisis between different communities in particular and state and civil societies in general. Such crisis invariably arises when the confidence of people are not taken or when their interests are mindlessly floated. Any bill, how good the intention would have been, must first adhere to public consultation and consensus before it gets passed.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12780768

A Social Construction of ‘identity’ among the Indigenous and Immigrants in Assam

Article

By Kuntala Das

A complex web of representing, preserving or contesting one’s identity dominates societies across the globe today. Identity, in its simplest sense, refers to the idea of how one perceives the self. Identities prescribe who one is, what role one is to enact and how one is unique from others in a society. Identity invokes the concepts of ‘self’ and ‘other’. This paper is an attempt to study the role of ‘indigenous and immigrant’ identity in Assam. Identity as a contested subject was for the first time raised in 1979 when the Assam Movement began, with a demand to deport the immigrants from the region. Discords in the name of identity between both the factions of indigenous and immigrants turned hostile with time. The conflict of the Bodos with the Bengali speaking Muslims is one such example which has resulted in bloodsheds since 1993. The indigenous peoples struggle to preserve their identity in the name of being the ‘son of the soil’, while the immigrants try to establish an identity that helps them sustain in their adopted land. The study aims to look at identity from perspectives of the indigenous and the immigrants.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12780631

John Thomas, Evangelising the Nation: Religion and the
Formation of Naga Political Identity. New Delhi:
Routledge, 2016

Book Review

Reviewed by Sangay Tamang

Within the domain of controversial debate concerning missionary and Naga Nationalism in India, this book presents a new perspective to look historically the relationship between missionary, colonialism and ethnic identity formation among the Nagas of North East India. Tracking history dated back to 17th century Europe, the author attempted to bring a picture of missionary emergence and the role it played in transforming the culture and tradition of Native American.Through extensive archival research and using the missionary metaphor of “city set on the hill”,Thomas tried to locate the birth of American Baptist missionary in the Hills of Nagatoo and the way it mediate the notion of “’civilisation” and “modernity” in North East India. The discussion on conversion towards Christianity among the Nagas has been well presented in this book by articulating the contradiction, confrontation and negotiation of politics between missionary, colonial administration and local institutions. The question likes “what do we want of this man’s new religion?” by an Ao elder (p. 50) present a problematic discourse of missionary’s inconsistency, conflict and its suspicious character within the heterogeneous configuration of Naga society.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12780426

Mahmood Mamdani, Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012

Book Review

Reviewed by Prashant Narang

In present day India, where we debate rights and access to resources and opportunities through a vocabulary of social justice and also sometimes through citizenship and son-of-soil claims; in “Define and Rule,” Mamdani interrogates the construction of the concept of “native”. He argues that the concept of “nativism” is a political construction of colonial intellectuals during crisis in mid-nineteenth century. Mamdani distinguishes between direct and indirect rule. Initially, the colonial supremacy was direct but post-mutiny in Colonial India, British institutionalized politics of difference which Mamdani calls as “Define and Rule”. This was more indirect by way of managing differences and monopolizing the power to define identities. Mamdani attributes construction of “the native” to the colonial intellectuals at the time of crisis. He identifies Sir Henry Maine as the key intellectual who guides the colonial administrators post-1857 crisis of the British Empire in India. Similar project was undertaken by Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje in Dutch East Indies. These colonial historiographers demarcated and carved out the native identity differentiating it from the settler and amongst native based on tribes.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12780275

Comparative Evaluation of Nutritive Value of Some
Fruits Available in North-East India

Note

By Saikat Sen, Timai Passah, Kitboklang Thubru and Raja Chakraborty

North East India is endowed with affluent genetic diversity of plant sources. The present work is undertaken to investigate the nutritive value of some common and less common fruits available in North-East India. Nutrition value of five fruits namely Malus domestica (apple), Pyrus communis (pear), Emblica officinalis (Indian goose berry), Docynia indica (crab apple), Rhus semialata (Chinese gall) were evaluated. Results showed that Chinese gall has highest nutrition value (446 cal/100g) followed by Indian goose berry, pear, crab apple and apple. Chinese gall and crab apple usually uncommon and only confined to the remote and rural areas of North East region of India. The study concluded that the fruits like Chinese galls, crab apple are the very rich source of nutrition and these fruits can be the alternative of costly fruits like apple, pear available in market to meet the nutritional demand of individual in lower socioeconomic region. Cultivation of such fruits also could beneficial for economic growth of individual and region.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12780196

Land and Law in Manipur circa 1891-1947

Article

By Lalsanglen Haokip

This paper focuses on the problem of land possession and ownership in Manipur following the Palace Revolt of 1891 when the British introduced a Residency form of indirect rule. The paper will critically examine the changing rights on land from pre-British period to post 1947 period through the prism of land regulation. The prevalence of land pattas in the Manipur valley vested individual ryots with landed interests somewhat analogous to that of the ryotwari system. In contrast, the Raj recognised another type of land right for hill chiefs who collected house tax on behalf of the whole village; and as such, this practice reflects elements of the zamindari system. In the pre-colonial era, certain chiefs of Manipur hills were familiar with the idea of tauzi land tenure which indicated settlement of a village, partly mirrored in the later colonial collection of village house tax. The hill chiefs soon internalised the language of rights under the Raj; and even today they refer to dai (right) with reference to their chiefly domains. The coming of Anglo-Indian law of patta into the entire valley of Manipur and gradually in parts of the hill areas heralded the origins of private property in land. The British interpreted patta as ‘the right of occupancy to a land by a tenant, provided it pays revenue punctually’. Further, the paper will see demarcation of boundary not as a definition of territory, but rather as a way of generating revenue. Therefore, this paper will connect colonial boundary making, origins of landed property, and the dual system of land tenure in the valley and hills of Manipur.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12780188

The Role of Oral Tradition with Special Reference to the Thadou-Kuki Society

Article

By D. Mary Kim Haokip

Thadou-Kuki society is well known for its oral tradition that expresses valuable messages. The Thadous have a rich collection of folk literature in different genres that include folk narratives, songs, proverbs, riddles, tales, nursery rhymes, lullabies, war songs, sacrificial chants, etc. All forms of oral tradition in Thadou society contains various informational values on religion, history, customs and public practices, and information that has the values of local wisdom in the daily life of the community, as well as genealogical information or descendant of a family in the community. All of the information are received, developed, and derived and transmitted to the future generations through a wide variety of oral tradition. However, with the advent of education, modern entertainment, changing lifestyle and advanced technology, oral tradition has begun to be gradually abandoned and forgotten by the Thadou society. This has adversely affected the existence and transmission of the rich and valuable oral tradition of the Thadous. The aim of the present paper is to discuss the gradual decline in the role and status of oral tradition in Thadou society and the need for maintaining and preserving before it is lost forever. The paper argues for collective responsibility of every member to preserve and store this rich oral tradition. Additionally, documentation and information centres, such as libraries, archives institution, and museum can help to identify, collect, document the oral tradition and preserve the information contained in the oral tradition.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12780178

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